racism – lonerloaner

i’m Arab, ten

im-arab10
i’m Arab, ten
Spray that at me with venom all you like,
Do you realise my ancestors are prophets?
Whatever lashes off your breath with vengeance,
lands on my skin with silken embrace.
Wesam El dahabi

It utterly baffles me when white supremacists herald themselves as civilised,
as the benchmark for humans to rise to, in the name of Jesus, in the name of Moses, in the name of whatever religious figure they suppose and they forget,
Jesus, Moses, Muhammad, Abraham, Jacob, Soloman, Joseph, and every prophet that ever lived was of African to Middle Eastern decent.

Enough with your amnesia, enough with your cognitive dissonance and dissociation with reality.

I have firm conviction that people who think this way have serious cognitive abilities, bordering on mental health issues. Their spiritual states are a given, there is nothing Jesus like nor holy about them.

But to throw an insult at me like ‘hey Arab’, is the most laughable. You do realise the word Arab only exists in a negative framework in a mind that has been utterly shaped by empty media rhetoric, void of any meaningful and rightful association to negativity. Calling me an Arab with intent to insults only affirms my conviction and love of my heritage.

Structural racism, selective amnesia, hate, prejudice and bigotry are not diseases and states that can be cured overnight, or ever, if someone is comfortable bathing in lies and misinformation.

In the words of a George Galloway in a recent debate, ‘The Iraqi’s were teaching the world Algebra when you (English) were sitting in forests painting your faces blue’.

If you’re that stupid and gullible to fall for media jargon, then it’s high time you wake up and realise the true worth of civilisations far more ancient than your infantile colonialist forefathers and their successors to present time will have you believe.

W.E.

i don’t matter

-i don’t matter

my heart hurts
my head hammers

in the light of black lives matter
and the drudgery of all lives matter

all i am trying to do
is not matter

-W.E.

i burn,
for the endless pain that my brothers and sisters have to endure,
my grandest of ancestors,
are not what can pass under the radar,
without the scrutiny of the colour trained eyes,
they would see them a mile away,
they still see them in my eyes.

their tongues are tied and pronunciation poor,
except when it comes to pronouncing something foreign,
then they are experts in all things culture, religion, politics and war,
boy do they fucking know war.

i am heavy with the guilt of half my skin,
for the idiocy of pretending everything matters,
not brown enough for being completely lashed,
nor white enough to be given the pass of passage,
into the realm of privilege.

olive man, brown boy,
heavy name because two syllables is too hard to pronounce,
but shariah, Osama, Al Qaeda roll off their lips like they’re natives.

no, i knew inside i didn’t matter a long time ago,
i only chose not to,
later in my life.

when winter protected me from abuse,
as I paled into the sea of whiteness like them all,
but summer makes me glow like an Arabian horses coat.

they want my skin in summer,
because it makes for exotic photogenic,
they all want my skin,
to touch it,
rub their hands over it like it is a precious silk,
i become the envy of the melanin challenged.

it’s just a tan in summer,
i am safe from scrutiny,
because it makes for seasonal comfort.

look closer you colour blind fools,
it’s always brown,
it’s always olive.

it’s just golden in summer,
ironic, that my ‘badge’ is ‘gold’.

Wesam (two syllables for ‘badge of merit’)
El dahabi (four syllables for ‘the golden’)

my name means something to my mother,
to my father,
to my ancestors perhaps,
but to me, it matters not at all,
because that is how to take away,
the ammunition of those who do or don’t want you to matter.

they can’t make or unmake you.

-W.E.

-prejudice

prejudice

The lowest form of identity
is patriotism

-W.E.

A belief that the name of a continent of birth defaults you to to practise prejudice against someone who’s own default steers them in the same but perhaps opposing manner as you, as if to say the purpose of humankind is to wipe each other out, of course in the name of grand old patriotism.

And politicians, governments and media are well aware of this, so they strip you of your true human identity, blast you with chemicals as soon as you leave the womb, myriads of injections, make your mother believe she doesn’t have the strength to do what a woman’s body is designed to do, cut you by force from her belly, and if she is lucky to deliver you naturally, cut the umbilical cord whilst it is still pulsating the love and nurture from her, a symbolic gesture of what lays ahead.

The chemical bombardment of drugs, food laden with toxins, water rancid with disease, an education model parading as liberating, a wolf in sheep’s clothing of the ulterior dumbing down of the masses and entrenching you in a separation from your true self, until you know nothing but this masquerade of what it is to be, to know your origin.

The severing of you from you begins the minute your fathers loins thought about finding a fertile home in your mother, both of them too, carrying the blood of manipulated and numb to the core beings, mindlessly obeying, worshipping the state and the system over what is truth and what is real.

And you…. well you have your patriotism, a golden stamp on your hand of your obedience to them.

Drape your shoulders in their flag,
tattoo their anthems on your breast,
congratulations, you’re not a patriot,
you’re bereft.

W.E.

S.W.A.D. – Specific White Amnesic Disorder

SWAD

I have a clinical term I will present to the DSM this year to list amongst the thousands of others they have voted in over the last half a century.

‘SWAD’ – ‘Specific White Amnesic Disorder’.

Reserved only for white people who didn’t realise, or couldn’t imagine a scenario of white colonialist history when presented with the facts about oppressive and racist pasts.

Like a chunk of their brain magically went missing that recalls history that was never taught. It’s not an excuse you can use to say, ‘Oh, I didn’t know that’.

-W.E.

Something has got to give. We can’t keep playing this reverse psychology, flipping the script, turning the truth and blatantly outright denying the facts, that white privilege affords a comfort that people of colour aren’t privy to.

There’s a convenience of playing dumb, or just outright being that uneducated when the general populace is presented with facts about the history of white colonialism, white oppression, white genocide of non whites, killing, murder, rape, pillage, theft, manipulation, power, control, stealing of natural resources, influence of war against, perpetuating international crimes against people of colour and natives of land. We cannot pretend to be shocked, and surprised, worse, lie about not knowing, pretend it doesn’t or didn’t exist.

Structural racism is so embedded in media influence, corporate influence, monetary influence, educational and government policy that even people of colour can be found denying history or detached from the reality that is attached at the hip to darwinistic-eugenicist-white supremacy. Since it’s disgusting theory was espoused, white men have hung on to such corrosive discourse with their dear lives, able to have shifted cultural and social paradigm until people are so numb and so lazy that they won’t even bother to get educated.

A wash of spume comes over them in the form of amnesia, even if they are educated in the destructive history and it becomes convenient to billboard at any given moment, to take to the stands of academe, to rise to the platforms of social media and hashtag alllivesmatter, as a supposed solution to #blacklivesmatter, not knowing that in reality, the simplicity of their intellect exposed, shows their inbuilt white privileged defence mode is entrenched with a weighty carving. Breaking such prejudice is near impossible without a blatant slap in the face, perhaps a kick in the groin to bring to reality their uttermost awareness and then have them focus on the subject at hand.

We don’t feel, we don’t realise, we can’t comprehend, we are utterly, cluelessly bereft of actual learning and understanding, and there has to be drastic measures to shake such disgusting and hidden racist vitriol out of a person, because the same way it is a learned trait, it can be unlearned, but the mirror has to be held up to these narcissists who are so threatened when faced with the reality of who they are and what they believe.

If you support a person of colour, race, sexuality, religion or gender against oppression, it doesn’t take an iota away from your colour, race, sexuality, religion or gender.

As straight as I am, happily married with children to boot, I don’t become gay if I take measures to defend a gay person.

As religious as I am, it in no way diminishes from my spirituality if I lose my voice standing up for the rights of anyone to practise their faith, or non-faith.

You don’t ever become lesser by standing up, you become more human than ever, more relatable to and respected by more people.

Unless of course your idea of humanity is segregation, separation, partitioning and isolation. Perhaps then, all you need to do is remove yourself from the social sphere, find a place where you can be on your own without infecting others, because make no mistake, you ARE the disease, you ARE the problem.

All lives can’t matter until the most oppressed lives are brought to the same privileged as the rest of the world. Until then, #blacklivesmatter matters more, otherwise your memory is dismally poor, I worry you actually might be brain damaged, not amnesic.

-W.E.

-burden

-burden
does it break your back
that I carry ancestors on mine?

-W.E.

why does culture bother you my friend?
is it because the sun does not touch your facethat you must deny everyone Gods grace?
perhaps because winds don’t cool your temperament
no one else feels gusts – you assume

the past time of tea
is not enough to quench your soul
the ceremony
that can otherwise make Japanese whole

you perplex me why my ancestry
something that belongs to me
can be the source of your misery

gnash teeth, brace your heart
point your spear
worse than a witches hunt

where is he,
beard, melanin full, accent thick,
eyes of war

where is she
only twerk worthy, ebony fantasy, she’s too veiled from me
let me liberate her with my placid inability

this is not your country
colour person, white as snow or dark as night
now we’re given the green light
to hate you with everything we got
to haplessly fight

rats out of the dark
scurrying to eat stale crumbs
you haven’t risen
still in the dark ages
still in the slums

the history of England will never change
a world of colonisation,
the only people left to burden with white globilisation
are the ones who are your blindest followers
who have taken well to immunisation
deprivation
humiliation
thinking they’re free under the banner of imperial sterilisation
little do they know,
they’re the most shackled of nations.

i still don’t understand
why someone’s culture,
name,
race,
colour,
religion,
gender,
preference in general,
could stifle you
and make you such a burden on yourself
all that dead weight you carry
can’t be good for your health

-W.E.

#brexit

Ironic that a country that has not left a stone unturned,
to steal even the grain of sand from underneath it,
who’s monarchy cannot ever be satiated,
ever on a diet of spoils of war,
is now left with one more country to devour….

Itself.

You stole poetry, that’s not yours
art, that’s not yours
medicine, that’s not yours,
resources, that’s not yours
oil, that’s not yours
land, that’s not yours
minerals, that’s not yours
science, that’s not yours
history, that’s not yours
religion, that’s not yours
And now that the owners of all those things are in your country living,
Ironically not asking to collect what’s theirs,
You claim,
this country….

it’s not yours

Fuck off to your dark ages, with your white supremacy,
Hell, you never left.

Dear Australia

Dear Australia,

I am sorry, I am not donning the red white and blue today.
This in no way or form makes me an ingrate to the privilege I have enjoyed growing up in this country.

This makes me a human, in full working capacity, able to acknowledge truths when they stand above him, when they stare him in the face in the back alley of his soul.

I can’t take those truths on no matter how hard I try and it is not because of lack of ability to intellectualise, theorise, philosophise or fantasise, whatever one of those ‘ise’ I implore, they are misdirection, misspelling of one word, LIES.

I am big, I am strong and I am secure in my convictions. I am faithful, I am honest and I am kind to my fellow man. I have a heart and I have a soul and I certainly have a mind and they all direct me to put my fists down, to submit my mind, to squeeze my heart and to hold my breath as I dive into oceans of truths that lay secrets buried under beds of atrocities anchored to the history of what makes this country.

I am ashamed. I am not of white descendants. I am not of European colonialist background, my ancestors had nothing to do with the genocide of the original custodians of this land, but I am still ashamed and the burden of guilt grows more and more as I age.

My own people have faced persecution too. For over one hundred years, white supremacy aims to drill into the heart, to burn the fabric of our cultures too. We’ve experienced genocide in the thousands of millions, uncountable numbers for no reason than also being custodians of land that contains valuable resources, that is conveniently in the way of their money pursuits, politics being the scapegoats for the reality of pure greed, brown skin the marketing medium to justify their propaganda push to kill people, human beings, people with cultures and heritages thousands and thousands of years old.

So my Aboriginal brethren, I feel your anguish, never in the manner that can be materialised into the raw emotion that I witness on your beautiful faces, but I feel something. I can’t raise a thumbs up on this day, I can’t raise my eyes from the floor, I share your mourn. I share your sadness. I taste the bitterness that lingers without a sweetness to numb it ever. The taste becoming the familiar flavour forcing an inability to palate anything else.

Please accept my apology for not doing enough, not feeling enough, not knowing enough and being oblivious to anything but myself for all these years.

To God we belong and to God we return, collectively in front of Him will we be stripped naked of our hypocritical clothes, of our oppressor skin, of our privileged flesh and our sullied bones.

There with nothing but our souls, will the court room doors be flung open and in front Him will there be one witness to put us away, to close the trial on us. Our souls will testify against us and we will all pay for that guilt. The laws of nature are the laws of God, there can be no semantic outbursts of fanciness around this. The nomenclature of the soul will bare witness, it’s time humanity became familiar with that nomenclature, to perhaps spare itself the trial that awaits it, the perpetual torment that will haunt us when the trumpet is blown.

Forgive me

Wes

p.s.

This article is one of the best I have read. Do yourself a favour. Put down the beers, the flags and the barbecue tongs. Read something and learn.

http://islaminaustralia.com/2013/09/10/the-first-encounter-between-muslim-people-and-the-aboriginal-australians-key-note-address-by-patrick-dodson/

Australia day: A celebration of genocide

Emotional-Bride-wedding-haka-feat-FB-600x315

I don’t veer into politics much, but when it is turmoiled with such a tragic day of shamelessness, I feel compelled to speak up.

I’m as alpha as males come, but this fucking ripped me. Mesmerisingly the most beautiful ceremony I have ever seen…. fucking ever!

I wish more Australians appreciated culture in general and I wish once and for all this whole country would shut the fuck up and just listen….. the world has stories to tell, they’re ancient, the world is ancient. Australia is ancient. It is not two hundred and eighteen years old, any child who learns about Aboriginal heritage will be able to fill you in, adults though, a strange amnesia hangs over their heads in perpetual dark clouds.

In three days the nation will shamefully celebrate a monstrous atrocity.

We hail the name of a lying crook, a thieving peasant, a murdering, pillaging remnant of a human who was then raised to high status by her royal bitch, the Queen of putridness.

This shameful day I don’t celebrate. I might find a corner to mourn in, to share warmth with brethren who are hurt by this gesture, to cloak them in anything, serve a cup of tea, a word of sorrow…. anything but celebration.

I know the ceremony is meant to celebrate union and love, but there can be no love in a relationship culture-less and void of heritage. It just made me reflect on all cultures of the world and their various ceremonies, and more importantly Aboriginal heritage and culture, their ceremonies, their dances and how we’re so fucking racist after all this time, that a small cultural gesture scares the fuck out of a nation of tough guy footballers. The nation loses it’s mind over a cultural dance and spear throw, in the words of Aamer Rahman, ‘their fake white feelings were hurt by a fake spear throwing’, so fucking fake Australia…. so poignant a reaction. I guess being fake, you recognised something and it hit a nerve.

Two hundred and eighteen years is not a culture and there are still people who cannot comprehend this. Let’s hope it doesn’t take another two hundred and eighteen to repent and pay penance.

But for now, cry as I did from this video…. Amazing…..

Watch the video first…. then read the words underneath the video of what the Haka translates to.

Pay attention
Listen up, take your stance!
Hi!
Arms outstretched,
out and back!
Kss Kss

What is right is always right!
In – deed!
What is right is always right!
Ah… yes!
Be true to yourself, my son!
My concerns have been raised about you, so pay attention!…. .
What is this problem you are carrying?
How long have you been carrying it for?
Have you got that? Right, let’s go on.

So son, although it may be difficult for you
and son, although it seems to be unyielding
no matter how long you reflect on it
the answer to the problem
is here inside you.
Indeed! Indeed! Indeed! Yes, indeed!

Source: http://www.folksong.org.nz/tika_tonu/

Ransom for freedom – 4

ransomed for freedom - 4

rAcisM is a woRd inocuLAted
iNtO
SocIetY via an
atTenuAted diseAsE
OF seManTics.
cAll iT wHat It is yoU fUcKing
cOwaRds!
WhItE supReMacY

-W.E.

The reflex action has occurred. Through their deceptive means, they have failed miserably to introduce a code of politically correct and harmonious vocabulary to suit the vernacular of public dialogue.

Instead of being honest through public space which is ironic since their books and literature are wrought with open frankness about their supremacist ideals, instead, they water down concepts to make them palatable, to occupy you with the mundane so that the toxic reality is ignored.

So we have the minority privileged, ironically ineffectively lacklustre in their life struggles, get motivated to tell an idiot on a train, ‘Hey that’s racism’, when they are picking on a woman of colour or race who doesn’t fit the pop culturally defined spectrum of supposed normality.
They are then paraded as a hero or heroine because someone has a phone and a Youtube account and a morning show needs clicks on their Facebook page.

The proper action would have been to take a bat to that persons head until you show him who is a minority and who is a majority, but that’s not PC enough. Until you bleed ‘racism’ out of his sinews and he is drained of it, like a blood letting of the demon it is!

The irony is people of colour and race are over seventy percent of the world if not more, that is if we want to go by the shitty standards of exclusivity and superiority of man as espoused by Darwinian gobbledygook.

White America, White Australia, White England and to some degree parts of White Europe.

That’s all they are…..

They’re diminishing because their illness is infatuation of self. They’re so enthralled with their pale reflection that they have forgotten the reality of life which is to procreate.

They prattle about natural selection through their devotion to Charles and his cesspool of a diseased mind and toxic soul and oh my God they are right, natural selection has them falling like flies as you cannot reproduce anywhere near the rate of the fertile world of colour and race. Oh the irony. Nature indeed has a way of filtering the bad ones out.
They’ve been taxed of the ability to procreate and breed and are naturally dying off. So they’ve created these plans of Eugenics to kill off other races.

Innocent people around the world, of colour, of race, of history of foundation of civilizations all to the slaughter to serve their fetishes.

You name it, they’ve created a way. Wars, food, sanctions, vaccinations, theft, pillage, murder, water contamination and more. They continue to perpetuate any means necessary to ensure they remain in power.

I don’t like to refer to human beings as dogs, but in this case, every dog has its day and their day is grand, it is coming.

It should be without disclaimer that people don’t get their knickers in a knot and comprehend who these accusations are against. They are directed at the elitist predators who control most of the world despite their minority. It is directed at the infantile and juvenile minded of supremacist supporters even though they in and of themselves are considered inferior by the true elitist. The true slaves of these elitists are the ones who in and of themselves are at the low end of the socio-economic spectrum, at best middle class and still side with the mantra of white supremacy whether directly or subconsciously through their laziness of mind, and emptiness of soul.

Take for instance this latest heart stopper, The Revenant being heralded as this amazing movie. I had one thing scurrying my mind throughout the whole movie. Fucking genocidal sons of bitches! The movie is nothing short of breathtaking when it comes to scenery and acting, particularly of Leonardo, but it is nothing short of a disaster of a storyline.
Boring as fuck, lame, repeated, watered down, dishonest and another stab at the intelligence of humans, or what is left of it. A coy and pompous exaltation of what it means to be a white supremacist. Mix in a little PC friendly storyline and you have The Revenant. There, hardly a spoiler but at least if you haven’t seen it, you will now watch with a bit more of an open mind instead of like the zombie that is expected.

Like clockwork, yesterday Leonardo gives a speech and my thoughts come to fruition. ‘……and lastly I want to share this award with all the first nations people represented in this film and all the indigenous communities around the world. It is time that we recognise your history and that we protect your indigenous lands from corporate interests and people that are out there to exploit them. It is time that we heard your voice and protected this planet for future generations…’

So conveniently said in his Armani suit, treated hair and ageless skin in front of his other privileged entourage of supporters. A day of toil in the land wouldn’t do him harm, a month, two, three maybe a year of living with these people day in and day out might have made his performance even better. But that’s exactly what it was, a performance, like his speech. Robotic, mechanical, scripted and emotionally void. He is an actor amongst many. Easy it is to prattle the social pedigree of expected comfort words in the expected time,walk on with grace Leo.

And on that note I leave you, take a long hard look at yourself. Let’s be frank, you’re an actor/ess. You prattle the social expectancies in public but are easily away from the uncomfortable realities. You bite your tongue from saying what you want and think because it is not colloquial etiquette but you mean something else with your behaviour and deeper beliefs.

You want to recognise indigenous people and protect the planet? Easy, stop killing everyone. Stop stealing resources, stop your eugenics programs and for the love of humanity stop prattling your bullshit in schools and give it back! Simple.

-W.E.

Majority Minority

BlackLivesMatter-53-1

They want to call us minorities,
Refer to us as inferiorities,
Little do they know we’re the majority,
But their media spin keeps down playing priorities,
That is, brown people are the larger quantities,
And from our ancestors come all of humanity,
And civilisations achievement and grand qualities,
You know, the stuff you stole along with our property,
The images you forged with lies and robbery,
The natives you tortured and ruined corrobories,
Attempts to teach at schools, false histories,
All for money and false economy,
Robbing lands of resource and all its treasuries,
Because you know of humans we are the epitome,
Why else would you lie and drop bombs on us as if we’re enemys,
Make handshake deals with those devils in Saudi,
‘Thou shall not murder’, said Deuteronomy,
But you’re not men of God, you won’t hear His plea,
You won’t sit and learn with humility,
Absorb from the sacred knowledge tree,
In your own mind, unshackle your enslavement, be free,
To finally wake up and notice,
We’re the majority in the you and Me,
But we’re happy to coexist, if only you’d see.

-W.E.

Admit It, You’re Racist

racism

When was the last time you weren’t so racist?

Yeah, no use denying it, your pupil dilation gave it off when the man with the long beard walked inside the plane cabin. His eyes were lowered, he had a genuine warm smile but you discarded that because your heart has been soiled with media vitriol and your mind has joined in to redirect any inkling of denying.

No, you reason, that smile is fake, he’s not genuinely soft spoken you convince yourself as you hear him politely ask for help from the flight attendant. He probably beats his wife, no, he has four of them and oppresses them all. His daughters are probably already married off at fourteen, his son probably ready to plan a future attack on innocents. He probably hates me, liberated western woman so I will hate him first.

Oh no, he’s coming this way. Damn, he’s sitting right next to you. There’s that fake smile of his, “Good morning”, he says. You tried so hard to ignore him but you can’t let him sound better than you. “Err, good morning”, you say under your breath, matching his fake smile with one of your own.
“May I squeeze past please?”
“Sure”, you reply.

What’s that smell? Gee, he smells like curry…… oh, it was the food trolley going past, still, he probably does.

No, he wafts past you and that fragrance is familiar. He’s wearing something woody, something cedar and patchouli like. You’re mesmerised, very masculine you think to yourself, but what on earth is it, you know fragrances like the back of your hand.

“I’m Muhammad”, he puts out his hand and you notice the Patek Phillipe around his wrist.
“Louise,” you reply again noticing the label on his shirt collar as your eyes quickly brush up no further than his chin out of politeness you’re conditioned to reciprocate.

Hmm, his beard isn’t really that long, no longer than what hipsters are sporting today. Again, you can’t help but notice his fragrance. You steal another look, he’s dressed immaculately, something you’d wish your boyfriend would turn up in to your parents house.

“Nice to meet you Louise. Muhammad and Louise, maybe we can steal this plane and runaway together?”

Your heart skips a beat, it’s fear, you’re terrified, you’re about to call the flight attendant and he adds “It’s a joke…. it’s a joke, Thelma and Louise…. you know it right?”

You look over his way with anger and for the first time, you want to look him directly in the eye as you try and express your sternness to him and tell him it’s not funny, but you’re mesmerised. His eyes, hazel green with tinges of almond and his smile, white teeth like they were carved by God himself, you stumble and catch your heart on the way and burst out laughing instead, “Yes, I know it, it’s one of my favourite movies”.
“Phew, I thought you thought I was a terrorist or something. If you’d like the window seat, I’m happy to change with you”, he adds politely.

Kind, polite, smells nice, has impeccable taste, appears to be wealthy with beautiful masculine features, you know the ones so clichéd in your mind, tall dark and handsome, successful, funny ……but….. and it’s a big but, his name is Muhammad. You don’t want to know any more you decide, it’s only going to be down hill from here.

“So where are you going?” You blurt out uncontrollably.

His surprised expression brings awareness to your cheeks as you feel them warming up. You hope your blush doesn’t start to bubble up and blister. You’re fiddling with your ear lobe with one hand and your hair with the other. Control yourself woman, you think to yourself as you collect your hands and lay them in your lap.

“Are you nervous? Does my beard send off the wrong signal?”

Wow, he’s perceptive, self aware maybe. You feel rotten, your stomach twists in a knot for the preconceived ideas you had and allowing them to manifest as they all simmer in front of you clearly now. You think to yourself, ‘Damn Louise, you’re a fucking racist.’ Your throat feels like there’s a ball in it as you struggle to swallow your saliva. You feel like a school girl infatuated with a boy. Now you notice, his beard is actually no longer than half a centimetre. How on earth did you see it longer before? You also notice he has no wedding ring on. Shut up Louise you tell your mind as it takes a leave of absence from your usual common sense state.

“No, of course not”, half lie half truth now that you noticed his beard properly.

“Oh ok, I understand if it does, I’m used to it, I’m heading to a conference and you?” Again, his voice is so reassuring when you think about it.

You feel worse, you suddenly realise you’re an integral part of the reason why he feels bad. You held all these preconceptions from the minute he walked into the cabin, you’re one of many who buys the hype, you’re a piece and there is nothing you can do to remove yourself from that horrendous puzzle except to apologise.
“I’m sorry, I’m truly sorry. I’m a horrible person….”

He cuts you short, “Heeeyyy…. relax, it’s cool, don’t be upset, as I told you, I’m used to it.”

“No, it’s not ok, I’m sorry, please forgive me,” you say with hope of him reciprocating acknowledged forgiveness. “What conference if you don’t mind me asking?”

He smiles again and sends butterflies down to cure that knot you had in your stomach.

“I’m going to speak at the Australian women’s association conference against domestic violence.”

As if your heart couldn’t sink any further, it now falls to the floor.
“Wow, this is such a coincidence, that’s where I’m going”.

———————————————————————————————

If only a change in perception were that quick!

Obviously a fictional story but with elements of truth.
I come from what is considered a minority in this country (Australia)

Being a minority I thought would mean I am quite free from being the oppressor and ever being racist towards other people.

Whilst superficially, I haven’t ever expressed racist sentiments, taunts or vitriol at people through word or action, I caught my mind instead participating in what has become socially ingrained in us all whether we like it or not.

Muslims just happen to be the best targets today because they serve an agenda of capitalist greed, of geo-political colonial pursuit and of economic fear-mongering to maintain a profitable wheel.

The stereotypes of the Arab or Muslim serve to program your mind to operate a certain way.

Other types of stereotypes are trivialised into humour and done so often that even the persecuted become desensitised to their blatancy.

As I mentioned, I caught myself out with this desensitisation.

I began treating customers differently at work, I even justified my treatment with excuses like ‘you can never be too safe’ or ‘hey, it’s just business.’

What I am about to say may be trivial to some, but as Louise caught herself out and became self aware of her own prejudices above, so too did I become aware of small things which I thought were not small at all, but the seed of ignorance and perhaps a start to something even more detrimental if I didn’t keep them in check.

I noticed that I treated the average Anglo looking customer differently to darker skinned, or non Anglo looking customers when I took their money. It was a small thing but for me significant, and I blew it up bigger than the elephant in the room.

I managed one of the countries busiest outlets and when it came time to taking eftpos payments, I’d wait for approval on the terminal before I’d finalise the transaction on the screen for some people and not for others. I would just hurry through the whole process assuming they’re trustworthy or that they had plenty of money in their account and that they wouldn’t default on the transaction.

This subtlety was made manifest when a wealthy looking person actually defaulted and then ended up wasting a lot of time before they finally had money to complete the transaction. Nearly all of my other customers never ever defaulted.

This was enough to cause me quite a bit of anguish as I punished myself for weeks for thinking so badly. I boiled it down to my inner prejudices, preconceived, perhaps infused with so much media stereotype.

Granted, this was my small inkling which drove me mad because I do not watch TV, listen to the radio and my online activity is limited to work, my blog and very rarely social media only to engage in a hobby I enjoy. I still found myself taunted by these preconceptions.

This shit, and it definitely is nothing more than shit takes a long time to remove from your mind, so this tiny inkling I saw, will serve to be a lifelong practise to stop myself in my own tracks, be self aware, be perceptive of my own mind and heart and stop it ever creeping up in me again.

Now it’s your turn. Take a long hard look at yourself. Think of all the races, all the gender preferences, all the religions, all the beliefs of people, everything, and see how far you can work yourself back to removing tiny prejudices from your soul.

With love
Wes.E.